Video Collaboration: Better Than Being There

This blog is first in a series of blogs glimpsing into the future of video collaboration. The second blog in the series is “Video Collaboration: On Every Pane of Glass“. We encourage you to follow the series and let us know your thoughts.

To say that video is changing the way we communicate and collaborate would be the understatement of the decade. In their current form, today’s video communication and collaboration tools not only improve interaction and help to foster better relationships between participants, but they provide non-verbal communication cues that already add significant value to those interactions. They help to better gauge the level of interest, engagement and overall sentiment of those participating, and that is useful and cool.

But video collaboration can deliver more than that. We think that with the explosion of video-enabled mobile devices, the availability of cloud platforms and applications, and the intelligence of the network we can add context, content, scale and make video even easier to use. In short, we believe that video collaboration can be made available on every pane of glass, that video can be as easy or easier than voice is today, and — most importantly — for many use cases, video collaboration can actually be better than being there. Some of these capabilities are available now and others in the near future. Let me share a glimpse of what video can do for you. Let’s start by exploring how video collaboration can be better than being there.

Have you ever participated in a meeting with a bunch of people that you have never meet before and had no idea what they do or why are they there? Have you ever arrived a bit late to a meeting and found that the people in the meeting are already covering important points you have no information on, and that you have no background on some of the participants and no context around their point of view? Have you ever had to leave a meeting early feeling anxious because you would miss key information and interactive discussion? If you answered yes to any or all these questions, then you would understand why adding context and content to your video interactions can provide an experience better than being there. If you have content-aware video experiences, you can actually change the dynamics of your video interactions.

Before the meeting you can review the attendants list, meeting minutes, content and video of previous meetings on the same subject. If you are arriving late you can see or listen to content from earlier in the meeting. And you can join the meeting from a mobile device like a smartphone and then transition to a full HD video experience when you have that available to you.

During the meeting you can brainstorm with other participants using white boarding, annotation and personal notes. You can connect with and learn about people without interrupting the meeting, and you can keep the community engaged via social media integration. And since most participants have multiple devices, you can extend experiences across those devices, like moving the content being shared to your personal device while keeping video full screen. You can control what you see. For example, you may choose to see your silent customer over the presenter. And never miss a minute of the meeting — seamlessly shifting to mobile device when leaving early.

After the meeting, continue to produce and manipulate content on real time or on-demand. With these new capabilities video becomes a document, it is shareable, searchable, editable, likable, tweetable. From self-service recording and streaming to expand reach and transcend time zones, to augmented live experiences that help to improve participation and engagement, to new on-demand experiences where you can turn video into useful knowledge stores and expose what is important and resonating with viewers.

These video experiences are way more than simple communication vehicles, and deliver an experience better than being there. How much more impactful would your meetings be with content and context aware video capabilities? Let me know your thoughts.

Learn about new pervasive video and conferencing solutions that Cisco is announcing on March 19 by attending our Cisco Collaboration Announcement Webcast with live Q&A from 9-9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. I encourage you to learn more and register now so you can be among the first to hear how Cisco is innovating once again.

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